How does one accurately compress thirty years of experiences into a few concise paragraphs of personal reflections on church planting? Words such as idealism, adventure, challenge, fulfillment, frustration, fears, tears, persistence, personal witnessing, and cooperation tumble through my head and spill out onto the page.
The first scheduled worship service in our home in Managua, Nicaragua…so many people had said they would come that I was worried where we would seat them all. The worry was unnecessary—no one showed up! I remember feeling so crushed.
The first baptism of 10 adult believers in a volcanic lake outside the city…I was as elated as I had been with the birth of our first child!
The first local leader to be installed to lead the new church while we moved on…how proud of him I felt as I had observed God’s hand obviously at work in him and in his wife to prepare them for the new task. Little did I dream God would use him years later to invite us to assist him in starting a new church in New York. My “pride” would have been tempered with sorrow had I been able to foresee his subsequent marriage failure and the painful rupture in our relationship that has not healed to this day.
Our journey in church planting has been a wonderful opportunity to attempt to live out our ideals drawn from Scripture and church history. The process forced us to return repeatedly to the Bible to see what God actually said, to ponder what was negotiable and what was not. The journey has included moments of danger and lots of challenges, so we’ve never needed to combat boredom. Finding ourselves “in over our heads” on many occasions has crowded us to Christ and prompted us to pray.
Sometimes we thought we might burst from the joy of seeing God at work: answers to prayer, provision for our needs and transformation in lives of new believers. Other times, loneliness, tears and disappointments were our frequent companions. Apostle Paul’s lists of troubles in II Corinthians became a source of comfort on more than one occasion. I am grateful God gave me an even-tempered wife who patiently stuck with me through thick and thin. Without her, and the prayers of God’s people, and the cooperation of our children and faithful colleagues I would have given up long ago.
The ministry of church planting was made much more fruitful as God provided companions to join us along the way. A variety of perspectives, personalities, gifts and abilities in our co-workers enriched us in many ways that we could not have imagined and have left us indebted to them for all their sacrifices and partnership.
God has been so gracious by His Spirit to train us in personal witnessing—I who had been such a timid farm boy raised in Oregon and who hated cities! What a wonderful journey it has been to learn a variety of ways to share the Gospel and to experiment with different tools in communicating His Good News, then to work at discipling new believers and to walk with them toward maturity and church leadership.
Years ago, when people wanted to give young people a challenge, they would say with enthusiasm: “Go West, young man, go West!” I’d like to paraphrase that challenge to: “Go plant churches, young man and woman, go plant churches!” As I ponder the way God has so graciously led us, I still marvel at the wonder and the privilege He granted us to be involved in church planting, to cooperate with our Risen Head as He fulfills His great promise, “I will build my church.” I’ve seen Him work to displace my critical spirit with love for the Church He loves so dearly and which will endure throughout eternity as an expression of His multi-faceted wisdom.
If I were granted the opportunity to live another life…I’d choose to plant churches all over again! And I’m praying persistently that many more throughout our churches all across the US and Canada will catch His vision as He builds His Church—through church planting.